(Five) Bits and pieces

• A short walk on Sunday afternoon, very local, so it's appropriate that the best photo is of our next-door-but-one neighbour's roses:
  
  
  

The brambles along the bank behind May Street are heavy with (still very green) fruit. So are the brambles in our garden, but I had assumed this was a result of my trying to cut them back, that it had acted on them like pruning and that those brambles which had survived because I could not reach them would taunt me with inaccessible fruit. But it looks as if it's going to be a good year for brambles in general.

We seem to have trapped ourselves in a routine whose rule is that we only make very limited excursions at the weekend, because we don't want to go anywhere that will be busy; but we don't take the opportunity to go to those places midweek, because it isn't the weekend. This is silly. The weather seems to be better at the weekend, too, which isn't fair. We have, however, made a date with S. to meet for a chat in the local park tomorrow afternoon, provided the rain stops, so here's hoping. Also, durham_rambler has a conflicting appointment, a meeting scheduled after we agreed a time with S. I suppose I should welcome this as a sign of returning normality.

Further afield, the Guardian recommends Belgium's coast, 40 miles of seaside, and "the world's longest tramline" De Kusttram, to help us explore it.

If you've ever wondered how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall musicians it would take to perform George Martin's arrangements live, the Analogues can tell you (courtesy of boybear):

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